28. Delilah #2
Kane eases the jacket from my shoulders and hangs it up. Across the hall, Anton has already relocated an entire box of honey cookies to the top shelf of a bookcase.
Yuri spots it.
“Why is that up there?”
“Because they’re for later.”
“You’re eating one.”
Anton slips the cookie into his mouth. “Quality control.”
Within ten minutes, the extended Makov Bratva has descended on everything I’ve brought like a swarm of locusts dressed in black.
One older man eats a pirozhok, grips my face between both hands, and kisses my cheeks. A woman introduces herself as his wife and tells me he shows less affection to their sons.
I try to deflect attention, but it just keeps coming. Oohs and ahhs and thank-yous and You’re so talented!
Being in the spotlight is extremely new for me. And it’s not so comfortable.
I do my best to grin and bear it, even when I want to tear my skin off and flee into a dark room all by my lonesome.
At the first opportunity, I escape into the one safe refuge I can find: the kitchen.
This is a happy space for me.
Four women are hard at work. Pots simmer on the range. Fish bake in the ovens. A huge bowl of kutya sits in the center of the island beside mushrooms, pickled vegetables, dumplings, dark bread, and cabbage rolls.
Without breaking stride or batting an eye, I’m instantly looped into the assembly line like I’ve always had a place here.
Somebody hands me a towel, then the woman beside me shows me the pinch she wants—thumb and forefinger, a little twist at the end—and watches my first three dumplings until she’s satisfied.
We work in happy, companionable silence for a while as the chaos of the party ebbs and flows around us. Cheeky little kids come sneaking into the kitchen asking for pre-dinner treats and get swatted away.
Niko tries the same stunt and gets whipped with dish towels until he, too, sulks off.
When dinner begins moving into the dining room, I turn to see what else needs doing.
For the most part, it’s just hands needed to ferry dishes from the kitchen into the dining room, where a huge table with twenty seats per side has been arranged.
I make one trip around it.
Then another.
On my third trip, Kane steps into my path.
“What?” I ask when I see him scowling like he’s mad.
He looks at the platter in my hands. “Give me that.”
“Why?” I protest. “I was helping.”
“You’ve helped enough,” he says as he pries the serving platter out of my hands.
“But there’s still so much more to—”
Kane puts his hand at the back of my neck.
Every thought in my head forgets where it was going.
His palm is warm. His thumb rests below my ear. He guides me along the table like I’m a hand-puppet until we reach the chair directly beside his.
It’s empty.
And it has a place setting.
A tiny name card written in dark ink.
DELILAH.
This isn’t a folding chair hauled up from the basement at the last second. I’m not perched on the arm of a couch while everyone else reclines comfortably.
He made space.
For me.
I stare at the card.
“Sit,” he orders quietly.
The gentlest pressure from his hand is enough to coax me down.
Kane claims the chair beside me, then reaches for my plate.
“I can do that.”
He ignores me, unsurprisingly.
Then he proceeds to fill my plate like I’m the Incredible Hulk.
Kutya. Fish. Vegetables. Dumplings. More. More. More. More.
“Kane, that’s—”
“Eat,” he says. It’s not unkind or harsh. It’s almost like he’s granting me permission in a way I’d never do for myself. Like, nobody would ever dare cast judgment when he’s around to say things in that voice.
I find that I really don’t mind it at all.
What I do mind is how suddenly and weirdly silent it is in here.
I look up…
… to see every eye fixed on me.
“Psst. Psst, Kane.” I elbow him in the ribs. “Why is everyone staring at me?”
Kane rests his hand on my knee.
“Because we’re waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me to what?”
“To begin.”
My throat closes.
I look at the table. At all the food going untouched while I sit here doing nothing useful.
Waiting for me.
Not waiting for me to slice the cake.
Not waiting for me to refill a drink.
Not waiting for me to Do It All.
Just me.
I pick up my fork and take a bite of kutya.
Instantly, around the table, everyone begins to eat.
Conversation returns in a pleasant rush. Glasses lift. Arguments resume. Happy moans and groans break out from every place setting.
Every place setting except for one, that is.
I turn toward Kane and immediately recoil when I see that he’s the only person in the room who isn’t perfectly at ease.
He’s staring at something intently. Angrily, almost. Sadly? Mournfully? I don’t even know.
I look where he’s looking.
Across the room, on a shelf between old books, is a framed photograph.
The picture is faded at the edges. Just like tonight, a Christmas table fills the center, crowded with men and women. Every chair is occupied.
A broad, soft-looking woman stands behind them with a serving dish in her hands.
She has Kane’s eyes. Green and vibrant.
I look from the photograph to the haunted tension in Kane’s face.
“Your mother?” I ask.
Kane’s thumb presses once against my thigh.
“She cooked for everyone,” he says. “They never once gave her a place to sit.”